Some people are hard to shop for, but when it comes to MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski it's going to be a breeze. Next to her name on my Chanukah list, I'm putting her down without hesitation . . . for a Roget's Thesaurus. Because when it comes to describing the performance of people across her political divide, Mika seems stuck on a solitary word: "underwhelming."

SCARBOROUGH: If you want to; you've done it before. Who did you use that for?

BRZEZINSKI: Uh, Fred Thompson.

SCARBOROUGH: So you thought Petraeus was underwhelming.

BRZEZINSKI: I just think the whole numbers thing is interesting. We had the surge, and when we had the surge this summer, a lot of people said they're having the surge so they can draw back. And that's exactly what happened. Just from the surge.

Panelist Matthew Felling, Editor of CBS's "Public Eye," observed that Petraeus gave "just enough for both sides to keep just going at it."

SCARBOROUGH: That's what's so distressing to me, is this general comes from Iraq, delivers his testimony, and I'm looking at the rundown afterwards and I could have predicted before hearing any of the people commenting on his testimony what they were going to say before they opened their mouths.

Mika gave a sympathetic "yeah." May her ears hear the words of her mouth. Speaking of words, next time Brzezinski assesses the work of someone who doesn't share her liberal agenda, may I suggest any of: "pedestrian," "hum-drum", or the always-serviceable "unimpressive"?